Summer is here and the hot weather can cause ozone levels to rise, making the air unhealthy to breathe, especially for people with asthma or other respiratory ailments. On days like today and throughout the hot summer months, it’s important to pay close attention to air quality.

As Americans across the country hit the road for the Fourth of July weekend, many families are struggling to deal with the burden of high fuel prices. One key tip is often left off fuel-saving checklists: buying the right tires can significantly improve a car's fuel efficiency.

The requirements establish limits on nitrogen oxides emissions and require the use of fuel with lower sulfur content, protecting people’s health and the environment by reducing ozone-producing pollution, which can cause smog and aggravate asthma.

A new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishes a common process for the agencies to follow in analyzing the potential air quality impacts of proposed oil and gas activities on federally managed public lands.

This summer two NASA research airplanes will fly over the Baltimore-Washington region and northeast Maryland as part of a mission to enhance the capability of satellites to measure ground-level air quality from space.

A new study from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of a locally-tailored air quality management strategy for Detroit found that it would result in significantly improved health benefits for those most at risk.

New research focusing on the Houston area suggests that widespread urban development alters wind patterns in a way that can make it easier for pollutants to build up during warm summer weather instead of being blown out to sea.

<p>The owner and manager of a California condominium complex were sentenced for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act’s asbestos work practice standards during the renovation of a 204-unit apartment building in Winnetka, Calif., in 2006 – work that caused asbestos to be released into the complex and the surrounding community. </p><p>
Charles Yi, of Santa Clarita, Calif., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson to four years in prison. John Bostick, also of Santa Clarita, was sentenced to six months home confinement, 150 hours of community service, and three years probation. Yi was convicted after a two-week trial in March 2011 when a jury found him guilty of five felony offenses, including conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act. Bostick pleaded guilty in February 2011 to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act. </p><p>
The jury also convicted Yi of failing to notify the Environmental Protection Agency and the South Coast Air Quality Management District about a renovation containing asbestos, failing to provide a properly trained person during a renovation containing asbestos, failing to properly remove asbestos and failing to properly dispose of asbestos wastes.
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Yi was the owner of the now-defunct Millennium-Pacific Icon Group and Bostick was its vice-president. Millennium-Pacific owned the Forest Glen apartment complex in Winnetka that was being converted into condominiums in 2006. Knowing that asbestos was present in the ceilings of apartments in the Forest Glen complex, Yi, Bostick, and the project manager, Joseph Yoon, hired workers who were not trained or certified to conduct asbestos abatements. The workers scraped the ceilings of the apartments without knowing about the asbestos and without wearing any protective gear. The illegal scraping resulted in the repeated release of asbestos-containing material throughout the apartment complex and the surrounding area because Santa Ana winds were blowing during the time of the illegal work. After the illegal asbestos abatement was shut down by an inspector from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the asbestos was cleaned up at a cost of approximately $1.2 million. Yoon pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in June 2010 and is scheduled to be sentenced in July. </p><p>
The federal Clean Air Act requires those who own or supervise the renovation of buildings that contain asbestos to adhere to certain established work practice standards. These standards were created to ensure the safe removal and disposal of the asbestos and the protection of workers.
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The Chattanooga area has made significant progress in improving air quality and has reached an important clean air milestone, but the state was put on notice to lean up toxic waste from TVA coal plant.

Supermarkets are among the most energy-intensive buildings around, and refrigeration uses more than half of that energy. That doesn't even include the harm that leaking refrigerants cause to the ozone layer. EPA's GreenChill program works with companies and their refrigeration engineers across the country to help program participants lower their refrigeration emissions of all kinds.

An air quality study near Marcellus Shale natural gas operations in Bradford, Lycoming, Sullivan and Tioga counties in Pennsylvania found no emission levels that would pose a public health concern, according to a report released by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

According to an article in Nature, researchers have spotted signs of recovery in the ozone hole above Antarctica. These first signs of human-caused shrinkage come 22 years after the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that banned the use of ozone-depleting chloroflurocarbons.

Cigarette smoking, forest fires and woodburning can release a chemical that may be at least partly responsible for human health problems related to smoke exposure, according to a new study by NOAA researchers and their colleagues.

The American Physical Society has released a new assessment, titled “Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Chemicals,” to better inform the scientific community on the technical aspects of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.